Educational programme
Primary and nursery cycles
The nursery and primary cycle is spread over 7 years with two years of pre-school education (nursery cycle) and five years of primary education.
The nursery school admits children from the age of four (children must reach their 4th birthday within the calendar year of their 1st scholastic year starting in September).
The primary cycle is for children that will turn six within the calendar year when their 1st scholastic year of primary starts in September.
Nursery cycle
The “Early Education” syllabus of the nursery cycle aims at:
- preparing children for a happy, healthy, responsible, and successful life
- developing children’s personality and abilities
- supporting children’s learning potential
- creating respect for others and the environment
- respecting and appreciating children’s own cultural and social identity, its values and those of others
- promoting a European spirit.
Early Education is a fundamental part of life long education and learning and its central role is to support children’s development enabling them to be ethical and responsible members of society. Teaching and learning in the early years supports and monitors children’s physical and psychological wellbeing, including social, cognitive and emotional development and helps to prevent any difficulties that may arise by creating the best possible learning opportunities.
Teaching and learning in the early years is holistic and different areas of development are not separated. In this document as well as in daily school life children, their experiences and actions are central.
It is important to strengthen children’s healthy sense of self-esteem with the aid of positive learning experiences and to provide opportunities for diverse interaction with other people.The children’s world of experiences should be enriched and they should be guided to enable them to find new areas of interest.
Children of four and five are taught in mixed groups.
The spoken language in the nursery classes corresponds to each language section of the school. The SWALS (students without a language section) also follow courses in their mother tongue for 150 minutes per week.
For further information, please consult the Early education curriculum.
Primary cycle
In the primary school the focus is on mother tongue, mathematics and the first foreign language, but art, music, physical education, Discovery of the world and religion/ethics are important – as are “European Hours”, where mixed nationalities meet for a variety of activities.
Primary school harmonised timetable
| Subject | Years 1 and 2 | Years 3, 4, 5 |
| Mother tongue (SWALS Language 1 – L1) |
8 hours
(2 hours 30 mins) |
6 hours 45 mins
(3 hours 45 mins) |
| Mathematics | 4 hours | 5 hours 15 mins |
| Language 2 (L2) | 2 hours 30 mins | 3 hours 45 mins |
| Music Art Physical education |
5 hours | 3 hours |
| Discovery of the World | 1 hour 30 mins | 3 hours |
| EuropeanHours | - | 1 hour 30 mins |
| Religion / Ethics | 1 hour | 1 hour 30 mins |
| Recreation | 3 hours 30 mins | 2 hours 30 mins |
| Total | 25 hours 30 mins | 27 hours 15 mins |
| ONL – Irish/Maltese* ONL – Finnish/ Swedish* |
1 hour 30 mins
– |
1 hour 30 mins
1 hour 30 mins |
| *Other National Language is taught during the school day | ||